F10 Japanese GP Alonso

Painted semi-gloss black, gloss black and some Alclad shades. Engine is aluminium. Wheels are Stainless Steel. Exhaust pipes, radiators, oil tank and axles are HPA. Drive shafts are cooper. Brake calipers are burnt metal.

Ready for HPA

I have spent couple of hours last night polishing gloss black in preparations for Alclad HPA to go on. I like Tamiya TS paint and TS14 in particular. I often can get high gloss, almost mirror like, straight from the air brush. And for the places where paint is not smooth enough, Micro mesh pads and Tamiya polishing compounds can be used with great results. Also polished out few imperfections in RB7's clear coat. RB7 is all ready for decals now. Tube of polishing compound is beside MP4/25's body to show reflective qualities of finish.

F10 Japanese GP Alonso

Some progress on F10. I've mounted and primed most of the parts. My estimation was correct and there were just over 100 parts to mount. I've used Tamiya grey primer for all non red and not while parts. For red/white parts Zero white primer was used. Zero white primer goes on in very thin layers. But it is somewhat thick and it seems even 0.5mm nose on my airbrush is still not wide enough. Resulted surfaces from spraying Zero white primer are a bit rough and will require additional smoothing with sand paper. In turn Tmaiya's grey primer goes on quite smooth and parts are pretty much ready for semi-gloss black and Alclad shades. Below are pictures before primer and after.

Gloss black is on 3rd time

It is 3rd time that gloss black is on the body of this model. I've decided to skip priming step (might regret it later), sanded body and remains of previous black layers, washed it and sprayed gloss black again. Will have to polish imperfections in gloss black and will spray Alclad HPA next. After that there will be second attempt with Alclad Aqua Clear.

CF floor for RB7

I've almost finished applying CF decals to the floor of RB7. I haven't decided which CF decals to use over exhaust covers. On real car CF pattern is quite hard to see on those covers. So, I'm not so sure if I ever should use CF decals over them. May be I'll leave them just semi-gloss black. Otherwise floor is CFed. I might add some coats of Alclad smoke to tone CF decals down. They look a bit too brown'ish to me. I've used S27's CF 3D decals on the bottom part of the floor. They are too firm to apply over any curved surfaces and non of decal softening solutions I have work on them. But they can be applied over flat surfaces with expensive use of heat from hair drier.

Back to primer again

I have managed to damage paint on MP4/25's body again. Tried to polish out imperfections in clear coat, which run a bit on me, I went through down to black paint. Then tried to touch up and only made things worse. I could not stand the damage and paint is stripped from the body once again. This time even base black coat got damaged, so plan is go back to primer and do proper preparations of body's surface 3rd time. I think that would be 3rd attempt to paint is, but not 100% sure. I think 3rd attempt kind of worked for MP4/22, so hopefully it'll be last for MP4/25 as well.

Original damage was quite small. Here it is just on the edge behind lower suspension arm.

And here is how it looked after attempt to fix that damage.

And here is how it looks now. Familiar view, isn't it ? Well, for me anyway.

More CF work for RB7

I've continued CF work for RB7. Spent around 3 hours wrapping gearbox in twill weave CF. It has somewhat complex shape. I've made 3 templates to cover it. Plus few small pieces to cover top and bottom surfaces. Couple of close ups and one over all shot below. Plan was to do floor next. However I'm running out of SMS twill weave CF decals. So, I'm going to do suspension items first, while new decals will be on their way to me.